


My One and Only Moment

by Westgate (Harkpad)



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Clint Needs a Hug, M/M, Phil Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2017-06-03
Packaged: 2018-11-08 09:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11078535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Harkpad/pseuds/Westgate
Summary: Phil has been wishing that Clint would be more than just his best agent and work friend. When he gets that wish, it turns out to be too good to be true. . . Until it's exactly true.





	My One and Only Moment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ceria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceria/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Be My One and Only](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4128352) by [ceria](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ceria/pseuds/ceria). 



> This is a Remix! I doubled the length, changed POV, and really changed the ending. A fanfic of a fanfic. The original is fantastic, so you should go check it out!

Phil was never much for ‘life-changing moments.’ Identifying life-changing moments is like trying to hold onto a wet fish, pointless and kind of gross. He learned at age ten, when his father died, that life could change on a dime, that getting comfortable with anything was useless. He watched his father’s casket go into the ground and his mother became a different person.  At ten he tried to control what he could in the moment, because everything around him felt so out-of-control.

Maybe that was a life-changing moment, but life happened quickly after that, and before he could blink he was signing up for the ARMY, changing the way he looked at the world, heading into the Rangers, and meeting Nick Fury.

After that, Phil’s life changed on a daily basis. Measuring seemed superfluous.

But Loki. The Chitauri.

Maybe they were life changing. Maybe, if he was going to start taking note of these sorts of things, he would put Loki and aliens on the list.

He didn’t.

“You’re not here as much as you used to be,” Nick said over a glass of scotch.

They were sitting in his office after a long day of meetings, and Phil could feel his exhaustion seeping through his bones and into his clothes. The scotch burned his throat, and did nothing to help his eyes feel lighter. He blinked. “I’m getting my work done,” he said, sounding a bit like a junior agent justifying his last mess of a mission.

Nick nodded. “You are. Hell would freeze over the day Phil Coulson didn’t stay on top of his work. That’s not what I mean.” He took a sip of his liquor. “Getting your work done and leaving didn’t used to be your style.”

Phil didn’t answer right away because his boss was right. Getting his work done efficiently let him move to other people and make sure they were getting their work done, let him drop in on various SHIELD offices unannounced and make sure they were doing things the right way, let him report back to Nick that despite what the annual evaluations of HR said, three of the junior agents were known to play Farmville on their computers when they should be working. Lately, though.

Why bother?

“My style has changed. Getting stabbed through the chest by an alien prince will do that to a guy.”

“I wouldn’t dream of questioning your dedication –“ Nick started.

Phil swallowed the fiery anger that surged through him at those words and gulped the rest of his drink. “Then don’t,” Phil answered, and he set his glass down on Nick’s desk and buttoned his jacket. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

By the time he got home his blood pressure had calmed down and he was drinking tea and making a cheesecake. PT requirements, right. He bet Nick told PT to that making complex recipes would help with Phil’s motor skills and they went along with it – Nick probably sent them a few pieces of whatever Phil made. He didn’t really mind, though. Stress baking is a real thing.

“I’m glad you’re back, sir,” Clint said as they sat down together in the cafeteria for lunch the next day. “But are you sure your doctors want you eating Mac and Cheese and a brownie for lunch?”

“Not in your job description, Clint,” he replied. He scooped an oversized bite into his mouth to prove his point. Natasha snickered beside him and Clint flipped him off with a grin.

“Seriously, though,” Natasha said, “I saw the footage. You looked pretty dead to me, but now you’re doing some PT a couple times a week and running missions. It’s impressive.”

Phil shrugged to hide the involuntary shiver that came every time his death was spoken of. He _had_ been pretty dead. “I’m still doing PT, and my shoulder bitches at me most days, but SHIELD tech is the best in the world. You both know that.” He glanced at Clint and didn’t miss the involuntary shiver he couldn’t control, either, and everyone at the table was thinking of Budapest.

“Fury’s got you running our missions again soon, then?” Clint asked, and it warmed Phil a little to hear the eager tone in his voice.

“Well, you two will be mostly on the Avengers side right now, but yes, we have a couple SHIELD missions in the pipeline for you, and I’ll handle those.”

He did. He handled them quickly, efficiently, and cleanly. Clint and Natasha fell back into being SHIELD’s most well-oiled machine and Phil worked the missions more efficiently than he ever had before.

He wanted them over. He wanted to go home. He’d been looking into volunteering, and he was seriously considering getting a cat. Well, maybe he’d start with a fish since the last time he’d had a pet he’d been seven years old, but a pet of some sort.

Of course, he had to get through his PT requirements when he got back from the missions, and he hated that. His shoulder wasn’t just bitching at him every day, it was screaming at him, and PT sessions left him cranky and worn out. Of course, Clint helped with that when it was his turn; Jasper and Natasha and Maria all cycled through Phil’s sessions to cheer him on and help. Today it was Clint, and those were his favorite days.

 “You okay, sir?” Clint asked once they were through, and Phil had to force himself not to sigh. Concern could get old real quick for him. Coming from Clint, though, it didn’t feel as bad. It didn’t hurt that Clint was dressed for the helping with Phil’s PT session, which always made Phil feel better.

He’d longed to date Clint for years, even asked him home a few times in hopes of developing some sort of relationship, but Clint wasn’t interested. Phil got it, and it was okay. Sure, it would have been nice, but he and Clint are friends at work, and Phil had learned that Clint Barton was not one for relationships. So as much as he was attracted to the man, Phil let him have his one night stands and two-week flings and enjoyed his company when they did manage to have dinner together once in a while and work together as a team. .

“Everything’s good,” he answered, tightening his tie as they walked down the hallway. Phil was going home. Getting out of here. He was going to bake and watch a movie and sleep.

“You bringing something tomorrow?” Clint asked, keeping up with Phil.

Phil couldn’t stifle his grin. “Are you fishing for something?”

Clint shrugged his adorable shrug. “Nah. Just wondering.”

“Made a cheesecake.”

“My favorite!”

“I know.” Phil wouldn’t admit it, but he baked what Clint liked when he could. Making Clint smile was still a favorite thing, dating or not. It brightened up SHIELD.

“So do I have to wait for tomorrow?” Clint sounded like a pouty ten-year-old.

Phil sighed and figured he’d say it out of politeness, but it wouldn’t happen. It never did. “Unless you want to come back to my place, you’ll have to wait.” He started walking again. No reason to wait for the reason Clint couldn’t’ come back with him. Occasional dinner out and trusting each other with their lives in the field hadn’t ever led to Phil’s apartment. Clint had never seen the inside of Phil’s place.

Clint followed. “Okay,” he said, like he knew it was a bit of a big deal but didn't want to play it that way.

Phil stopped and raked his gaze up and down Clint’s frame, looking for something out of the ordinary.

“What?” Clint asked.

“Are you an LMD?” He asked. He couldn’t help raising an eyebrow in disbelief.

“LMD?” Clint looked confused, which meant his brow was furrowed in the way that always made Phil want to reach up and smooth it out.

Phil shrugged. “Life Model Decoy. Stark’s been known to threaten.” One of Phil’s many duties at SHIELD is to keep a running list of those threats of new tech. It meant Phil had to pay more attention to Tony Stark than he really cared to do.

“I’m real,” Clint said with a crooked grin he definitely reserved for when they were off the clock.

Fifteen minutes later and they were climbing the stairs to Phil’s apartment. He’d been there ten years and his stomach had never churned like this as he showed Clint through his front door. Showing Clint though the door was something he used to imagine, in the dark of night, but so many years of ‘no, thanks’ had worn the thought away until now.

“No elevator, huh?” Clint asked as they headed up the last flight before his third floor door came into view.

“Need the exercise anyway,” Phil answered, and Clint was quiet after that. Phil shoved his way through the door into his hallway and took a deep breath. Clint wanted to be here. Clint took his offer. Phil needed to calm the fuck down. This was nothing except out of the ordinary. Phil could deal with out of the ordinary. He unlocked his door and pushed through, took his coat and scarf off as Clint did the same, and he toed his shoes off as Clint followed suit.

“Have a seat in the living room,” he said. “I’ll bring you a piece. You want some coffee, too?”

“Always,” Clint replied with a grin. “You don’t want me to see the code for your refrigerator or something?” he called as Phil headed to the kitchen.

“Didn’t expect you, so I left the dirty dishes,” Phil replied. He was lying. He always did the dishes before work, but he needed a moment. Clint was here. It’s not like Phil was a pining school kid or something, but having Clint in his home space had been relegated to fantasy some time ago, and Phil felt like a different person after Loki, so the combination had his stomach churning.

“Head?” Clint called from the living room, startling Phil from his thoughts.

“Down the hallway on the right,” Phil replied. Of course Clint would take that opportunity to nose around, but there wasn’t anything damning in the place. No, Phil had kept all of his damning thoughts to himself over the years. Well, mostly. Nick was his best friend, and he may have drunkenly confessed his lust for Clint at some point, but it’s not like Phil kept photos of Clint around his house or anything.

He fixed two plates of cheesecake and made a pot of coffee while Clint looked around his place, and when he headed out to the living room a few minutes later, he stopped short for a moment. Clint was on his couch, looking through a pamphlet he’d found on Phil’s coffee table. He took a deep breath and went to Clint, handing him a place and mug of coffee before heading back to the kitchen to grab his own.

“Planning on volunteering, Phil? Giving back to the community?” Clint asked as he set the pamphlet back on the coffee table and took a sip of his coffee. There was a twist in his tone that made Phil think he may be joking around, but he wasn’t going to play it off.

“Actually, I was thinking about it. The library has a homework help kind of thing, and there’s a Boys and Girls Club not far away.” It was true. When he was at SHIELD right now, all he really wanted to do was leave. The place was too big, too violent, too much of a box for Phil at the moment. Since he was saved, he’s had a restless feeling like maybe the people he should be helping are the ones right here in his neighborhood. The ones he sees every day, like Jimmy whose mother died in the Invasion. Or Naomi, whose brother got crushed on his way home from work in the Invasion. People he had to look in the eye each morning as he passed them in the apartment lobby.

“Seriously?” Clint said, turning his sharp gaze to Phil’s eyes.

Phil didn’t blink. “Yes. There are people who need help right here, too, you know.”

Clint’s frown deepened for a flash, but then it was gone. “You’d be good with kids, I bet.”

“I have two nieces who think I do okay,” Phil answered with a shrug.

“Hey,” Clint said, suddenly staring at Phil’s clothes and grinning that crooked grin Phil likes so much. “You can change clothes if you want to. I don’t figure you live in your suits, no matter what the junior agents say.”

Phil is startled, because he’s never really dressed down in front of Clint before, but here Clint is, eating cheesecake in Phil’s apartment, so maybe more rules can change. “Okay,” says, standing up and tossing Clint the remote control. “Go ahead and pick something.”

He retreats to his bedroom and pulls on a t-shirt and his most comfortable grey sweatpants with the thought that if he’s going to dress down in front of Clint, he may as well go all the way down to home slob level – if this doesn’t make him run, then this is truly an odd situation.

He doesn’t run. He’s found a reality show from just after Phil got out of the hospital, which makes Phil swallow a memory of coming back to his apartment alone. Nick had helped him get home and helped him restock his fridge and clean up a bit before being totally on his own, but he’d left, and those first few days at home by himself had been a haze of night terrors and lots of bad television.

But Clint chose this, and Phil can watch with him from the other end of the couch.By the time the show was over, Phil’s face hurt from laughing so much. Clint's sharp sense of humor mixed with the bad tv show to help Phil relax and laugh in a way he hadn’t since before the Invasion. Phil’s whole body was warm and comfortable, and he watched Clint from the corner of his eye as he laughed and talked with his hands and complained.

“This is such garbage, Phil,” he said, turning and grinning. His hair was messy and his eyes were bright, the night was comfortable and fun, and Phil’s body suddenly betrayed him in a way that it hadn’t in years. He felt a flush at the sight of Clint happy and on his couch, and his ‘what if’ factory in his head switched on in overdrive.

“Yeah, but at least it’s pointless,” he replied, and stood quickly, moving to the back of the couch to hide his unexpected interest in Clint’s smile, his laugh, his body. “And tomorrow is very much not pointless,” he added. “We should call it a night,” he said, and the disappointment of those words made his body calm the hell down.

The disappointment on Clint’s face almost made it rile back up.

“Oh,” Clint said, and he nodded. “Okay, sure.” He stood up and bit his lip and looked at the ground for a moment, like he felt the awkwardness seeping into the air around them. “You sure I can’t’ help with those dishes?”

Phil couldn’t help his brief frown at the oddity of the offer. He shook his head. “No, it’s okay. They’ll only take a minute. Thanks, though.”

Clint nodded. “Okay.” He headed for the door, put his shoes on, and waved as he left.

Phil blew out a long breath after the door shut. He didn’t sleep well that night at all. Nightmares of Loki stabbing Clint instead of him left him sweaty and awake just a few hours later.

 

And then, Clint kept turning up. Phil always welcomed him in his office, but now he became a regular fixture. They talked sometimes, but a lot of times they worked, Clint on his own paperwork and Phil on managing his teams until he could leave at five. Clint would sit on the couch with a clipboard or his laptop, or sometimes he’d sit on the floor and use the coffee table for his work space. Some times Phil would work at his desk, but sometimes he’d sit next to Clint on the couch and they’d share an apple or bowl of pretzels. Phil spent the first two times overthinking it, but then he figured he’d overthought enough in his goddamned life, so he just enjoyed it.

“What’re you working on?” Clint asked one day.

“Report.” He purposefully kept this one vague. This one worried him, and he didn’t want to freak Clint out.

“Well that’s front page news, Phil. What report?”

Phil was sitting at his desk and Clint was on the couch, eating a container of yoghurt after a couple of hours at the range. His hair was damp from the shower, and if Phil hadn’t been looking at the report he was looking at, he’d want to lick the droplets inching down Clint’s neck. But not now.

“The Tesseract Incident and Helicarrier attack,” Phil said, and he watched Clint carefully. This is one subject they've never covered together. “I’d like it if you’d check my timeline, if that’s okay.”

Clint stood up slowly and moved to Phil’s desk. Phil handed him a paper and watched as he bit his lip and ducked his head a little to look it over. Phil knew that reaction – that was nervousness.

“You never did ask me for my report on all of this,” Clint said without looking at Phil.

Phil drew a deep breath. Psych would probably wish him horrible nightmares for a month if they knew what he was about to say, but they didn’t know Clint like Phil did. “Psych wanted me to wait until you volunteered the information.”

Clint looked up sharply. “Really?” He asked, and Phil just nodded. Clint sighed. “So is this me volunteering?”

Phil watched him carefully, and he didn’t want to push, but they’d never even approached the subject. Maybe they should. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Clint hesitated, looked around the office, and shook his head. “Not here.”

Phil grinned because he knew the one place Clint Barton always felt safe. “I’ve got just the place.” He took Clint to the roof. The roof is where Clint feels safe, even though he’s never said as much to Phil. Phil just knows that up high is Clint’s default, that when no one can find him this is where he is.

They stand at the edge for a few minutes before Clint says a word, but Phil is patient.

“I never told him about you,” Clint said, and Phil can’t help the sharp intake of breath.

It’s followed very quickly by a tight feeling in his chest, akin to dread and immense sadness. If Clint remembers that, then he must remember everything, and the guilt must seem insurmountable.

“And that bothers you?” he replied, because he’s not sure where this is going.

Clint shrugged, and Phil watched the moonlight play across his face. Clint’s face is more lined now, since Loki came, worry lines, anger lines, a shadow to his face that wasn’t there before. Phil has always been fascinated by Clint’s face; he always thought that if he had the chance to look as much as he wanted, he’d see every moment of Clint’s life etched across that face.

“I told him about Natasha. I told him everything,” Clint looks out across the compound, not at Phil. With a sigh, he adds, “He was convinced I was in love with her.”

Phil smiled into the darkness. That Clint loved Natasha was news to no one, so taking it a step further would have been an easy leap for Loki to make if he searched Clint’s mind. Clint and Natasha were forged from the same mettle, a tumultuous childhood absent of anything resembling care and compassion. It drew them together as soon as he saw her, and Phil had watched with a tinge of jealousy as they’d tried a relationship. He was sad for both of them that it wasn’t the kind of relationship that could last, but had been part of the solution as the three of them pulled together in a deep sense of brotherhood after they fell apart.

“Why did you fixate on her, do you think?” Phil asked. Clint would have been fighting as Loki tried to control him, Phil knew it, though he didn’t know how.

“I think because I knew he couldn’t hurt her,” he said, and looked straight into Phil’s eyes.

That Clint might have been protecting Phil had never occurred to him. That Clint would protect Phil underneath such fear took Phil’s breath away. He didn't know what to do with it, but he tucked the knowledge away in his heart.

“She and Loki are a bit alike, actually,” Clint added, and he smiled sadly at Phil. “Psych had kittens when I told them that opinion.”

Phil laughed and nodded. “I see it. Tricksters, both of them, and people see what they want to see, like Loki.” Natasha may have chosen to use her skills for good, but the trickster had been trained into her early, and the same was probably true of Loki, too.

“What did you want to see?” Clint asked, leaning against the wall of the roof.

“I think I see her as you do,” Phil answered. Clint was good at seeing the best in people, and Phil had learned to do that with Natasha from him.

“Sans the past sexual relationship?” Clint said with a smirk.

“I was a little smarter than that,” Phil laughed.

“Smarter than sleeping with an assassin with the name of Black Widow?”

Phil looked away. “Well, yeah. I never saw her like that.” A friend, a sister, yes, but never a lover.

“Did you ever even consider it?” Clint asked, and this time he looked at the ground, like he was afraid of the answer.

Phil could reassure him on this, that’s for sure. “I never considered sleeping with that assassin,” he said, emphasizing ‘that.’ Something was happening here, and Phil didn’t understand it, was actually very confused by the whole thing, but he’s never been one to ignore someone’s lead, and Clint was clearly fishing for that answer. That it was true helped. He couldn’t help watching Clint very carefully. He’d been acting odd with Phil lately, and this moment was so charged that sparks were almost flying. The ball was in Clint's court now.

He just shrugged and smiled an unusually bashful smile, though, so Phil took a deep breath and led them back downstairs. He wouldn’t push anything. That was never a good idea with Clint.

Apparently, Clint was going to push. He showed up in Phil’s office that Friday afternoon and leaned against the doorframe. “Do you like comic books?” He asked, the epitome of forced nonchalance. Phil could read him, no matter what.

“Yes? Why?” This was an odd question from Clint.

“Well, one of the publishers is doing a run about the Avengers and the CHitauri Battle, and I kind of want to see what they do with it. It comes out today. Want to come?”

Phil swallowed. This curiosity could be for fun, or it could be a ‘I want to go see what they made of my disaster.’ He took a calming breath and nodded. “I’d like to see it. I’m not going to be able to get out of here before nine tonight, though.”

Clint grinned. “You working this weekend?”

Phil had to stop himself from dropping his jaw. Clint wanted to socialize again. Was initiating it again. Phil was tempted to go to Nick about this and see if Psych was aware of the odd changes in Clint’s behavior. Or he could go comic book shopping with Clint tomorrow. “Tomorrow I’m free,” he heard himself saying, and the thousand-watt smile Clint gave him in response kept Phil awake for an extra hour later that night.

They met up in the morning, though, both of them in jeans and sweatshirts, and Phil accidentally licked his lips when he opened his front door to Clint in his forest green sweatshirt and navy blue baseball hat. Clint in a baseball hat was one of Phil’s favorite things. He recovered, though, and they headed out. After they bought the comic book and parked themselves on a bench near the shop, they went through it together, laughing and groaning.

“Well, it could have been worse,” Clint said with a sigh.

“Much worse,” Phil agreed. When he looked over at Clint, he saw shadows in his eyes, shadows that he hadn’t seen much of lately, but that had been constant when Phil first woke up after the battle. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asked, as gently as he could.

He didn't expect Clint to say yes, but he did, and they talked for two hours.

“In the end, SHIELD’s the only thing that ever gave me anything good, after Barney left, and then I turned around and killed seventy-five people I knew,” Clint said an hour in.

“But it wasn’t –“ Phil started.

“Me,” Clint finished with a crooked smile. “Yeah. I know. But it still happened, and at least when I’m with the Avengers I don’t have to walk into a break room hoping to see Adam Winston and then remember that I killed him last year.”

“You sound tired,” Phil said. He wanted to be gentle. He wanted this moment, this odd, amazing moment, to last as long as it could. He wanted Clint to trust him and be comfortable.

Clint blinked and shrugged. “Nothing like the first few weeks of the circus year. I always use that as a benchmark, and only a handful of missions and the crap with Loki beat it.”

“What were the first few weeks like?” Phil asked, and he suddenly felt as if a magical bubble had materialized around the bench they were sitting on. Clint never talked about the circus.

An hour later, Phil had circus stories and a new perspective on Clint Barton, and Clint was leaned against Phil’s shoulder. The day was more than he ever hoped for. Clint had talked not just about the circus, but about his brother, Barney, who Phil now wanted to both hug and punch. Two lost kids, that’s for damned sure, is what Phil took from the whole thing.

As they stood at a hot dog vendor for lunch, and Clint said, “Well, that was exhausting.” He paused and gave Phil a smile. “Good, but exhausting.”

Phil bought him a couple of hot dogs, and as they ate he got greedy. “I need to run a couple of errands this afternoon. Wanna come?” He didn’t want the bubble to burst just yet. It didn’t. They ran errands and ended up at a pizza place that Phil loved. When they finally headed back to Phil’s apartment door,  it was almost seven-thirty. Phil’s body was thrumming as he unlocked his door. A whole day with Clint, and a Clint who was open and funny and sharing himself in a way that Phil had never imagined he would.

He still didn’t want it to end. He wanted more. He wanted Clint in his bed and he wanted to wake up in the morning to a sleepy smile and breakfast with Clint. He wanted to cuddle on the couch and watch bad TV and have dinner and sex again the next night.

He wanted.

“Do you want to come in?” He asked, and he couldn’t help the way his voice carried the want loud and clear. Clint didn’t do relationships, but he wanted anyway. Clint did one night stands and Phil knew that, but he wanted anyway.

Clint went very still, and he sucked in a slow breath and let it out. He ran a hand through his tousled hair like he did whenever he was nervous or embarrassed and Phil wanted to reach out and run his hands through it. He held back.

Clint, though, leaned in. He didn’t answer Phil’s question, but he leaned in and brushed a kiss across Phil’s lips, leaving electricity in their wake. Phil’s breath caught.

“I can’t tonight,” Clint finally said, and the words shattered the moment like a cheap glass crashing against the floor.

Phil should have known.

“Maybe,” Clint said, and then stopped. He started again. “Maybe later this week?”

Phil blew out a breath and nodded. He could play along. “Sure. Later is fine. I understand.”

Clint stood there for a moment, and then turned and left with a muffled, “Good night.”  


And then Nick disappeared and everything became clear.

“It wasn’t a mission,” Phil said sharply, leaning a little too much on the conference room table where the briefing was being held.

Clint, Natasha, Sitwell, Woo, and Hill were all staring at their file folders and frowning. Phil put up a slide on the large screen. “This is the timeline I’ve put together so far, and on the right side is what we could get from his phone.”

“You have his phone?” Natasha asked, raising an eyebrow.

“He was nabbed in his home,” Phil replied. “We have his phone and his security system records and it’s the damnedest thing. There were signs of a struggle, but the visual footage has been wiped, and someone would have to be very good at security to wipe his system. Very good.” Phil couldn’t help the clench of his jaw at those words. He was low-key panicking right now and trying very hard to hide it. Nick couldn’t be gone, but he was, and anyone who could disappear Nick Fury was beyond a major player. They were outside the list, if they could get to him.

“We’ll figure it out,” Clint said, and he met Phil’s gaze steadfastly and nodded. “We will.”

Phil kind of wanted to lean over the table and kiss Clint right there and then. He pulled in a deep breath and nodded, instead. “Take three hours with the files, and we’ll report back here and put our ideas together.”

Everyone nodded, and left for their own space to work, but Clint stayed behind for a moment.

“What can I do for you, Clint?” Phil asked, gathering his folders together.

“Phil, you’re going to go through Fury’s files, right?” He answered, and Phil looked up sharply at the tone of his voice. He sounded timid.

“I have to, yes.”

Clint swallowed and nodded. “Look, I know we don’t have time here, but you need to know that these last few weeks have been some of the best of my life. I didn’t know what I had until I almost lost it, Phil. Until I almost lost you.”

Phil held his breath for a moment and then nodded. “They’ve been good for me, too,” he said. “I can’t talk about this right now, though. We have to find Nick.”

Clint nodded and ran his hand through his hair. “I know. Just. Remember that I want this. What we have going on. I want it if you do.”

The timing here was odd, to say the least, but Phil guessed that Clint was tired and worried. That can do strange things.

“Okay. We’ll talk when this is over. Definitely. Go help me find him, okay?” he asked. He had to get Clint back on task. He was marvelous when he was on task, and Phil needed that now.

Clint nodded and left, and Phil tried not to think about how Clint looked like someone had kicked his favorite dog.

Phil went up to Nick’s office. In an emergency, he had access to Nick’s files, and he spent his three hours wading through the last few weeks of Nick’s itineraries, meeting notes, and files that seemed odd, or out of place. With fifteen minutes to go before regrouping with the team, he saw a series of files that caught his eye. They had Clint’s agent code on them, and an odd title – “PC Retention”. If Nick was doing something to try and retain Clint, that meant that the WSC could be trying to get Clint out again, and most of Phil’s current theories about where Nick disappeared involved the WSC.

He opened the files.

When he closed out of Nick’s computer, he took a deep breath, talked himself through a focusing meditation technique that had saved his life a few times, and headed back to the conference room. Retention, as it turned out, had nothing to do with the WSC and everything to do with what had been happening with Clint the last few weeks. Now was not the time to let the fact that Nick had asked Clint to – no. Now was not the time. Phil was going to have to do some serious cutting of ties when all of this was over.

For now, Phil could do his damned job, though.

He did. They found Nick in under three days, got two members of the WSC fired in the process, and Clint was suddenly acting like a little kid caught stealing. He avoided Phil for a few days, until he showed up on Phil’s doorstep with a bottle of wine.

Phil didn’t let him in.

“Phil,” Clint said with pleading in his voice. “I know you read the files. I know you’re angry.”

“You were seducing me for Nick. Nick told you to get me to stay with SHIELD, told you to use any means necessary, and that’s what you went with? Seduction? Fuck you, Clint.” Phil, for once in his life, couldn’t control the words coming out of his mouth. The fire in his chest was controlling everything at the moment. Clint took a step back, but Phil wasn’t finished. “A simple conversation would have solved it. ‘Hey Phil, Nick is worried about you leaving. Let’s figure it out together’ is all you needed to do. But no. You played with me, Clint. You fucking played with me and drew me in and what were you going to do when I asked again for you to stay? Had you thought about that? What would you do then? Fuck you for messing with my heart. You had no right.”

“It started that way, yeah, but Phil!” Clint said, trying to yell without yelling – they were in Phil’s apartment hallway after all. His voice came out a harsh whisper. “It’s not how it is now. I promise. It’s real.”

Phil took one look at him, backed up, and shut the door in his face. He couldn’t do this. He went to his bedroom, undressed mechanically, and crawled under the covers. Sleep seemed like the only thing he was capable of, so he did that.

The next morning, he called in sick to work for the first time in three years. He watched old movies, went to the pet store and got a fish, and spent the afternoon setting up an aquarium and listening to his favorite jazz albums at top volume. He ordered takeout and didn’t eat it, and when he finally went to bed again, he shook with anger until he finally fell asleep, exhausted. He’d ignored exactly twenty-two messages on his phone that day and hadn't checked his email once.

When he was trying to decide whether to do the same thing the next day, there was a knock on his door. He didn’t answer. He took a shower, put on his sharpest suit, and after a very long day of getting everything in order, he walked into Nick’s office and resigned.

“Phil, this is not what you think it is, this thing with Barton,” Nick said, standing up.

Phil straightened his tie. “I think you told him to convince me to stay with SHIELD and he offered himself in return.”

“Why would he do that, Phil? What good would it do him if he didn’t actually have feelings for you?”

Phil wasn’t getting dragged into this. “Clint’s got a sense of self worth equivalent to an insecure teenager, Nick. He’d do anything for you and SHIELD, no matter what it cost him.”

“You’re underestimating him, Phil. And self-worth conversations from you are a little too pot and kettle. I did ask him to convince you to stay, but I never told him to seduce you. Not if he didn’t want to already.”

Phil’s laugh might have been a bit hysterical, judging from the way Nick drew back sharply. “I’m done, Nick. Give me a call in a month or two and we’ll go out for a beer, but I have better things to do with my time than be manipulated by SHIELD.”

He left the office, went home, and packed all of his suits in a travel bag before shoving them into the back of his closet. He pulled on jeans, a forest green button down, and his walking shoes. When he locked his apartment it was six-thirty, and he didn’t get back from walking the city and stopping for the occasional scotch until ten.

Clint was waiting.

“Go home, Clint,” Phil said as he unlocked his apartment door. He let himself in and went to close the door, but Clint shoved his foot in with a thud.

“Gimme two minutes, Phil,” he said, and it was the way his voice sounded wrecked that made Phil pause. “Please,” he added, and Phil decided that two minutes was better than being pestered again tomorrow.

He let Clint in.

Clint paced. “Don’t resign, Phil. You can’t resign over my shitty behavior. SHEILD needs you.”

Phil swallowed, but it felt like he had rocks in his throat. “That’s what this comes down to?” He asked. “Still trying to complete your mission?”

“Dammit, Phil!  I don’t give a damn about the mission. I told Fury a two weeks ago that he could shove his mission up his ass. I don’t want you to lose your career because of me.”

Phil felt like there was a tiny current of electricity under his skin. “I was on my way out, Clint. There’s a reason Nick gave you that assignment. Don’t let your ego make this about you. I’m resigning because there are better ways I can spend my time. Less violent ways. Ways where people don’t use my own feelings against me. This is about both of you, and the fact that you took a chance to tip the scales, but they tipped against you after all. Now go home.”

Clint clenched his eyes shut for a moment and didn’t move. Phil hoped he wasn’t going to have to throw him out bodily. That could get ugly.

“I’ll quit the Avengers. I can get you on as the Avengers liaison and you won’t have to work for SHIELD. You can be a consultant to Stark Industries and Tony will make the pay better than you’re getting now. I can make it happen. You’d be excellent with the Avengers and they'd be happy to have you. They need a good handler more than they need an archer right now. You can work with Cap and Nat and not have to deal with Fury at all. I’ll quit the Avengers and go back to SHIELD. We can trade places, okay? Just don’t leave. Don’t – don’t leave, Phil.” Clint ended on a whisper and Phil was startled at the passion in his voice, the way he meant every word of it.

“What?” Phil asked. “Why would you do that? Being an Avenger is a dream come true for you. Why would you give that up?”

Clint moved to the front door and opened it. He stared at the floor and answered, “Because you deserve to have something good. Because I’d give it up for you,” he said, and then he left.

An hour later he received a text from Tony Stark saying, “You’re hired. Be here tomorrow morning at ten and we’ll get started.”

When Phil arrived at Avengers Tower the next morning, everyone but Clint was there, gathered around a conference table. Natasha sat silently, and Phil didn’t even try to talk to her. He didn’t really understand yet what was going on, and he knew he'd crack if she grilled him too hard.

“You look like shit, Agent,” Tony began as Phil sat down at the table.

“I didn’t get much sleep,” Phil confessed. He might as well be honest with these people, if he was to work with them.

Cap started, and he looked all business. Phil had learned that Steve Rogers and Captain America were very different people, and this was all Captain America. “All right. We can discuss how to get Hawkeye to see reason and get back to this team at a later time, but for now let’s work through what a liaison and handler job is going to look like. We need you, Coulson, but we need to be clear: we want Hawkeye back as well. If we figure out what your job is going to look like, we can work out how he’ll fit back in.”

Phil nodded and did his best to work with them as they spent the next two hours creating a job description. It looked like a very good job description to Phil when they were finished. He’d even have time to do that volunteering he’d been considering. If he got past Natasha’s frown, that is.

The room emptied, and Natasha had pinned Phil to his chair with her glare, so he hadn’t even pretended to get ready to leave. They stared at each other across the table.

“You’re not wrong,” she said finally.

Phil blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Okay,” he replied. “But how is this going to work?”

Natasha smiled, and Phil felt his blood go cold. “Oh, this isn’t going to work. Not this way,” she answered.

“The job?” He asked, because she had managed to get him turned around in two sentences.

“Not the job. Look,” she said, and she switched chairs so she was sitting next to him. Her green eyes held compassion, but her jaw was set in her typical ‘get shit done’ fashion. “You’re not wrong that he started hanging out with you for the wrong reasons.”

Phil couldn’t help the huff that escaped his mouth.

She nodded. “He did start for the wrong reasons, and Nick should have known better than to present the whole thing as a mission for Clint. Nick forgets about Clint sometimes.”

It was true. Nick had always had a bad habit of treating Clint like the college graduate, ARMY special ops recruit that he’d never been. That was your typical SHIELD agent, not Clint.

Natasha reached out and put a hand on Phil’s arm. “Nick forgot, and Clint agreed to a bad mission. You're not wrong.”

“But?” He asked, and he crossed his arms.

“But Clint did tell Fury to shove it up his ass a few weeks ago, and told me that he couldn’t believe how lucky he was to be able to get closer to you. How he thought maybe this could be different, that maybe he’d figured out how to have a relationship with the one person he thought was out of reach for years.”

There were so many things in that statement that Phil didn’t understand, he couldn’t do anything but start to talk and then stop. What the hell could he say?

“Clint fell for you, Phil. He fell a long time ago, shoved it down deep, and then Nick accidentally gave him permission to try and pursue it.  Go get the files from Nick and look a little more carefully. Nick never said to seduce you, and Clint stopped the mission once he realized he was really falling for you. Get the files and think about the last month or two. Think about the change we all saw in Clint. You’re good for him, Phil. He could be good for you, and you need to give him a chance. It was a clusterfuck of a beginning, but it doesn’t have to end that way.” Her voice betrayed her honesty in a way it rarely did, and Phil could hear the love for Clint and for Phil hiding in it.

He nodded. He still didn’t know what to say, and she’d clearly said all she wanted to say because she stood up, pressed a kiss to the top of his head, and left.

Phil sat at the table for a long time.

When he finally decided to move, he headed back to SHIELD, and found Clint right where he expected. The range. He watched him shoot for a while, and then he opened the mic to the range. “Agent Barton, can I have a word?”

Clint didn’t startle, but when he looked up at Phil in the viewing box, he narrowed his eyes and hesitated. Finally, though, he nodded. The storm Phil could see in Clint’s eyes made him open the mic again.

“Can you meet me out front in ten?” He asked. He’d really rather not do this at SHIELD.

Clint nodded again, and Phil headed to the front of the building. It was a sunny afternoon, cool air and blue sky.

Clint appeared ten minutes later in his jeans and ratty old Converse, and a Creedence Clearwater Revival t-shirt untucked. His hair was wet and his jaw was set.

Phil didn’t say anything at first, just led them down the street to a nearby park. When they got to a park bench, he sat, and Clint followed.

“I didn’t listen to you,” Phil began, and Clint stared out at the park and nodded. But he stayed quiet, so Phil went on. “I didn’t want to listen because all I saw was that you’d spent time with me because you were asked to. All I saw was that my own feelings, feelings that Nick knew I had, were used against me.”

“Isn’t that on Nick?” Clint asked, still not looking at Phil.

Phil sighed. “Yes, and believe me, he’s on my shit list right now. But he didn’t ask you to seduce me, and he doesn’t know you as well as I do, so maybe he didn’t see it coming.”

“I didn’t-“ Clint began, but Phil needed to get this part out, so he interrupted.

“You knew I’d wanted you. I’d asked you over before and you never said yes. I’d asked you out and you refused.”

“You never asked me out,” Clint protested.

Phil laughed. “Really? I seem to remember asking you to come out with me for years and you refused every time. Until Nick asked you to get me to stay. Then you never refused.”

“Phil,” Clint whispered. When Phil met his gaze, he looked wrecked. “I never went out with you because I knew that if I did, I’d fall so hard the crash when it ended would kill me. So I said no, and I shoved down any feelings I might have had for you, and never imagined that you were anything but physically attracted to me. Why would you fall for more than that? I didn’t want just physical with you, so I pushed it all away.”

Phil forgot how to breathe. “So when Nick asked you to seduce me,” he began, finally.

“He never asked that,” Clint replied. “You know from the files he never asked that. I never intended to do that, either. I was going to hang out with you, and maybe I knew you would because of what happened before, but I was just going to hang out and then use the friendship as a tool to keep you here. Which I understand was wrong, but Phil,” he said, and he clenched his fists against his forehead, “I never meant to seduce you. When I realized I wanted to, I told Nick the mission was over. If you had told me you wanted to leave SHIELD I would have found you a way to do that, Nick Fury be damned. I promise, Phil.”

Phil realized in a wave that this is exactly what Clint had done. “So you found me a job with the Avengers.”

Clint gave him a small smile and shrug. “Yeah. Might as well get something good out of this mess.”

They sat silently for a while, and then Phil sighed and leaned into Clint’s shoulder. “So. Do you want your job with the Avengers back?” He asked.

Clint dropped his head to his chest and laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” He looked up and met Phil’s gaze with those kaleidoscope eyes Phil loved so much. “Do you want to go out on a date with me?” He asked.

Phil smiled and nodded. “Yes. Yes I do.” A thin shimmer of worry flushed through his body, but after a moment, Clint leaned over and brushed a kiss across Phil’s lips and the worry changed to something far more pleasant. And when he looked at Clint, sitting next to him hoping for a chance, he took one of his own and laid his head on Clint’s shoulder. “I’m sorry I didn’t really believe you when you tried to tell me, earlier.”

Clint pressed a kiss to Phil’s head. “I have a feeling our insecurities may overlap a bit more than I originally assumed. I forgive you.” He paused and added, “I’m sorry I didn’t come right out and talk to you about it when I realized what was happening to me.”

Phil looked up at him and smiled. “Like you said. Insecurities.”

“We’ll have to get better at talking,” Clint said with a smile in his voice.

“Not our strong suits,” Phil replied. “But we’ll practice, okay?”

“Yeah. Practice is good.”

They sat like that, staring at the green grass and blue sky, for a while, and then they headed back to Avengers Tower, and Tony threw an impromptu party that night, to celebrate the “whole Avengers team as it should be.”

The next week, Clint took Phil to dinner at his favorite Italian place, and they ended up back at Phil’s place, for real this time. When they got married two years later, Nick stood up for Phil, and Natasha stood up for Clint.

 _That_ was definitely a life changing moment.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
